ISSUE 26 - AUG 2014

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at themagpi.com
A Magazine for Raspberry Pi Users

SmartDrive Robot
PiBot Robotics
FUZE BASIC
Magic Wand
Introducing
VoIP Server
Mashberry the Model B+
Pi Canvas
BitScope

Raspberry Pi is a trademark of The Raspberry Pi Foundation.

This magazine was created using a Raspberry Pi computer. http://www.themagpi.com
 26

Welcome to Issue 26 of The MagPi magazine.

This month's MagPi contains another great selection of hardware, software and programming articles.
Michael Giles explains how to turn your Raspberry Pi into a magic wand with a fun hardware project
that demonstrates the persistence of vision effect, while John Mahorney from Suncoast Science Center
in Florida shows how a Raspberry Pi is used to display dynamic art. Big news this month is the launch
of the Model B+ and MagPi writer Aaron Shaw has all the details for you on page 22.
Robotics is always a popular theme and Harry Gee continues on from last month's article and shows
how to add speech, voice control and facial recognition to your robot. Additionally, Rishi Deshpande
describes how to use the SmartDrive controller board to easily control high current motors.
Another popular topic is beer and Sebastian Duell explains his hardware and software "Mashberry"
project which he uses to optimise the mashing process. Karl-Ludwig Butte continues his series on using
a Raspberry Pi and BitScope for electronic measurement plus we have an interesting article by
Walberto Abad on how to set up your own VoIP telephone system.
Last, but definitely not least, Jon Silvera continues his series on learning how to program with FUZE
BASIC. This is an exciting article with lots to discover. I certainly don't remember ever being able to
control sprites this easily with BASIC!
We try to make sure each issue of The MagPi contains something of interest for everyone, regardless of
age and skill level. Have we got the balance right? Let us know by sending an email to
editor@themagpi.com or comment on our Facebook
page at http://www.facebook.com/MagPiMagazine.
Finally, a big thank you to all the volunteers who work
hard behind the scenes to produce The MagPi for your
enjoyment and education.
Let's get started... Chief Editor of The MagPi

The MagPi Team

Ash Stone - Chief Editor / Administration
Ian McAlpine - Issue Editor / Layout / Proof Reading
W.H. Bell - Administration
Bryan Butler - Page Design / Graphics
Matt Judge - Website / Administration
Aaron Shaw - Layout
Nick Hitch - Administration
Colin Deady - Layout / Testing / Proof Reading
Dougie Lawson - Testing
Nick Liversidge - Layout / Proof Reading
Age-Jan (John) Stap - Layout
Claire Price - Proof Reading
Rita Smith - Proof Reading

2
Contents
4 MAGIC WAND
Persistence of vision: build a magic wand with an accelerometer

8 PI CANVAS DIGITAL ART DISPLAY

Display dynamic art using a Raspberry Pi

1 2 SMARTDRIVE ROBOT
Coding a remote-controlled robot with the SmartDrive add-on board
MASHBERRY
1 4 Homebrewing with the Raspberry Pi

1 8 PIBOT
Part 2: Add the power of speech, hearing and vision to your robot

22 RASPBERRY PI MODEL B+
All the details on the latest addition to the Raspberry Pi range

26 BITSCOPE
Part 2: Electronic measurement with the BitScope oscilloscope add-on board

30 VOICE OVER IP SERVER

Using Asterisk to implement a low cost telephone system

34 THIS MONTH'S EVENTS GUIDE

Southend UK, Mountain View CA, Malvern UK, Manchester UK, Winchester UK

36 FUZE BASIC
Part 2: Variables, procedures and sprites

44 HAVE YOUR SAY

Send us your feedback and article ideas

http://www.themagpi.com
3
 PERSISTENCE OF VISION

Build a magic wand with an

accelerometer Michael Giles
Guest Writer
SKILL LEVEL : INTERMEDIATE

Persistence of Vision displays create an image Obtaining parts

by quickly displaying one column of pixels at a To build the circuit I
time. When the device moves rapidly along a used the Pi
linear path the human eye can view the image as Prototyping Kit from
a whole as it is built up column by column. When OpenElectrons.com.
I say rapid I mean rapid, at least one twenty-fifth It has multiple
of a second. At this speed an afterimage is seen integrated circuit
in the retina and the viewer perceives the rapid footprints and
succession of LED blinks as a full image. unwired through-
holes for great
Operation prototyping flexibility.
The magic wand displays five columns of pixels For the accelerometer I used the LSM303
for each specific letter in a user defined string. breakout board, also from OpenElectrons.com.
The accelerometer is used to determine which
direction the wand is swinging to avoid Magic wand assembly
displaying the string in reverse. The circuit build
for the magic
wand required
soldering of
Project parts list through-hole
components as
1 x Raspberry Pi well as the
1 x Pi Prototyping kit (OpenElectrons.com) surface mount
1 x LSM303 breakout (OpenElectrons.com) PCF8574 chip. The datasheet showed the In/Out
1 x SmartUPS (OpenElectrons.com) ports of P0-P7 to which I connected the eight
1 x PCF8574 chip, manufacturer part PCF8574ADW LEDs. In the first build I placed a bussed resistor
1 x 1 0uF through-hole capacitor, ESK1 06M050AC3AA array between the 5V power and the LEDs to
2x 82K through-hole resistors, 271 -82K-RC limit the current, but when I tested I realized the
8x 4mm flat top red diff LEDs, HLMPM201 lights were extremely difficult to see in the

4
daylight. I then shorted the resistor array and the
LEDs became much more visible.
Connecting the LSM303 breakout was by far the
simplest part. The Pi Prototyping board has two
I 2C female connections for a quick plug in for
breakout boards.
The full schematic for the project is shown below.
Apparatus assembly
In order to move the LEDs fast enough to see the
image, I attached the Raspberry Pi along with the
Pi Prototyping board to a long flat wooden stick
using screws and spacers. Wood was used to
avoid any shorting that may occur. On the back
of the stick I attached the SmartUPS to power
the Raspberry Pi and make my device more
mobile. The SmartUPS is powered by three AA
batteries and, though it has several functions, is
only used for power in this project. On the other
end of the wooden stick I drilled a hole and
attached a rod to be used as a handle. This
allowed me to easily swing the magic wand
around in a circle.
Installing packages
For this program I used the
OpenElectrons_LSM303 package installed using
the pip package manager. If you do not have pip
you can get it by opening a terminal window and
typing:
sudo easy_i nstal l pi p
To install the OpenElectrons_LSM303 package
type:
sudo pi p i nstal l OpenEl ectrons_LSM303
This command will install the
package as well as the
OpenElectrons_i2c package needed
for I 2C functions.
Programming
In order to generate the ASCII
characters, I first created a look up table. The
table is just a dictionary in which each character
is a list containing five hexadecimal values. Each
value generates one vertical line of pixels. The
example below shows the hexadecimal for the
letters B, C and D. A full alphabet, with numbers
and symbols can be downloaded in the Python
sample programs available from:
http://www.openelectrons.com/pages/63
#5x7 asci i characters l ookup tabl e
l ookuptabl e = {
...
' B' : [0x7f, 0x49, 0x49, 0x49, 0x36] ,
' C' : [0x3e, 0x41, 0x41, 0x41, 0x22] ,
' D' : [0x7f, 0x41, 0x41, 0x41, 0x3e] ,
...
}
With the look up table created, I then started
writing the program by importing any needed
files and defining my variables. Note that only
ACCEL is imported from the
OpenElectrons_LSM303 file. Because the
LSM303 chip contains a magnetometer, as well
as an accelerometer, the library contains two
separate classes. Also, notice the 'str' variable.
This is the string the magic wand will display.
i mport ti me
i mport os, sys
5
 from OpenElectrons_i2c import oe. simpleWriteByte(0xff)
OpenElectrons_i2c time. sleep(. 0015)
from OpenElectrons_LSM303 import ACCEL #reset string
index = 0
test = 1
oe = OpenElectrons_i2c(0x38) A link to the code in its entirety is shown below.
lsm = ACCEL() Have fun creating images and messages with
str = "MagPi Rocks! ! ! "
length = len(str)
your own magic wand.
index = 0
test = 1 LSM303 Magnetometer
g = 9. 81 When creating your own magic
t = . 05 wand you may come across
print str
various issues with certain
wand designs. If the wand
The whi l e loop starts by turning off the LEDs. changes direction at any given
Next it reads the accelerometer value along the time, you will encounter a rapid
X-axis then quickly reads the value again. With deceleration. This causes the static and dynamic
these two values a simplified calculation of accelerometer readings to clash, resulting in
acceleration can be performed. unwanted input data. If you are a mathematician
while test == 1: or are extremely knowledgeable about advance
#turn leds off physics concepts, this may be a fun project for
oe. simpleWriteByte(0xff) you. But for everyone else, you may want to use
#get first value the LSM303 magnetometer. The code has a few
array = lsm. readArray(lsm. ACCEL_X_Y_Z | 0x80, 6)
aclraw = lsm. accl(array, 0)
differences, but once you figure out the proper
time. sleep(t) magnetic readings it is very easy. The
#get second value magnetometer reads the Earth's magnetic field
array = lsm. readArray(lsm. ACCEL_X_Y_Z | 0x80, 6) so readings will be different depending on
aclraw2 = lsm. accl(array, 0) direction and location.
#divide values to compensate for gravity
#and subtract to find delta Useful links
acl = (aclraw2/g) - (aclraw/g)
#filter approximate still values OpenElectrons.com full magic wand project kit
if acl <= 30 and acl >= -30: and program:
acl = 0 http://www.openelectrons.com/pages/63

The following i f statement and whi l e loop OpenElectrons.com SmartUPS:

actually light the LEDS. The whi l e loop accesses http://www.openelectrons.com/pages/33
the look up table for every letter in the string one
at time. This allows any message inserted into
the 'str' variable to be displayed without any other
changes in the program.
#if moving from right to left display string
if (acl) > 0:
time. sleep(. 15)
while index < length:
for number in lookuptable[str[index] ] :
oe. simpleWriteByte(~number)
index = index + 1
#turn off leds for a short time to
#account for letter spacing

6
 PI CANVAS
Digital art display

How to display dynamic art using

a Raspberry Pi John Mahorney
Guest Writer
SKILL LEVEL : BEGINNER

In the past digital artists have been limited to static
images (prints) when creating wall art. The Pi Canvas
allows digital art to be created and displayed on a
wall just like a framed print. However, the art is now
dynamic which opens up new creative opportunities.
In this article I will describe how you can make a Pi
Canvas using your Raspberry Pi to produce a display
of dynamic art - art which can optionally interact with
viewers.
What is Pi Canvas?
Pi Canvas is a Raspberry Pi mounted on an HDTV
that has a USB connector to power the Raspberry Pi.
The Pi Canvas has no keyboard, no mouse, nor does
it respond to the TV remote control. It is simple to
use. Just hang it on the wall, plug it in, press the
power button and let it do its thing.
of the hardware and software is not covered here as
there are many excellent tutorials available online.
The Pi Canvas was developed in the Faulhaber Fab
Lab at the Suncoast Science Center in Sarasota,
Florida. It supports STEAM education (Science +
Technology + Engineering + Art + Mathematics) for
all ages. For more details, please visit
http://www.suncoastscience.org.
Pi Canvas hardware
The Pi Canvas hardware requirements are simple:
Raspberry Pi (model A or B)
USB <-> micro USB cable (for power)
HDMI male to male coupler
HDTV (e.g. VIZIO model E390-A1 )

The Pi Canvas can operate 24/7 or be powered on

and off as required. It can also be made to interact
with its environment through electronic sensors (e.g.
ultrasonic or infrared) which opens up even more
creative opportunities.

How to make a Pi Canvas?

The hardware and software used are all popular,
open source and well documented. Basic knowledge

8
While any HDTV can be used, the example HDTV is
particularly good as it has a USB connector sufficient
for powering the Raspberry Pi. It also has a recessed
area on the back for attaching the Raspberry Pi,
which allows for flush wall mounting. Finally it has a
narrow, clean bezel which makes a nice frame.
Pi Canvas software
Just like the hardware, the Pi Canvas software
requirements are simple and familiar to many:
Latest Raspbian OS
Chromium web browser
HTML5 Canvas element
JavaScript
Chromium has a kiosk mode for full screen operation
with no browser decoration or controls. The HTML5
Canvas element offers good graphics capabilities for
art and is fast. Finally JavaScript is an easy but
capable language for browsers. This software
combination runs very well on a Raspberry Pi.
Example JavaScript tutorials can be found at
http://www.w3schools.com/js/. You should also visit
http://www.html5canvastutorials.com.
Pi Canvas configuration
In addition to the normal Raspberry Pi setup, the
following steps are required to make a Pi Canvas with
the listed hardware and software. You will need
separate power for the Raspberry Pi because the
HDTV does not supply adequate power for this step.
Enter the following on the command line:
sudo apt-get update
sudo raspi -confi g
When the Raspberry Pi Software Configuration Tool
appears, enable the option to boot to desktop.
Next we will install the chromi um package plus some
other utilities. The uncl utter package removes the
mouse cursor from the screen after some inactivity.
sudo apt-get i nstal l chromi um
sudo apt-get i nstal l uncl utter
sudo apt-get i nstal l x11-xserver-uti l s
Your dynamic artwork is a web page. On the next
page there is some example artwork code. Enter this
code into a text editor and save it as sampl e. html .
Put this sample file into the /home/pi / folder.
When the Raspberry Pi is powered on, we want to
automatically start Chromium with the artwork
running. On the command line enter:
sudo nano /etc/xdg/l xsessi on/LXDE/autostart
Comment out the following lines by prefixing them
with a #:
#@l xpanel --profi l e LXDE
#@pcmanfm --desktop --profi l e LXDE
#@xscreensaver -no-spl ash
Then add the following lines:
@xset s off
@xset -dpms
@xset s nobl ank
@chromi um --ki osk --i ncogni to /home/pi /
sampl e. html
In nano you should see the following:
To save your changes press <Ctrl >+X, then Y then
<Enter> .
When you restart your Raspberry Pi, the sample
artwork should automatically appear. To open a
second login press <Ctrl >+ <Al t>+ F2 . To return
back to the art display press <Ctrl >+ <Al t>+ F7.
Pi Canvas artwork
The Suncoast Science Center has a display area for
showcasing inventions of all kinds created in the Fab
Lab. Here is a screen shot of a Pi Canvas on display
9
 in the Fab Lab display area. The artwork is titled var fi berCol or = " hsl a(" + fi berHue +
"Loose Weave Digital Fabric". In April it won an " , 100%, 50%, 1)" ;
award at the Art Center Sarasota One World
exhibition. setInterval (eachTi ck, i nterval );

functi on i ni ti al i ze() {
var cc=document. getEl ementById(
" canvas1" ). getContext(" 2d" );
cc. save();
cc. transl ate(400, 300);
hue = Math. random() * 360;
}

functi on eachTi ck() {

count = count + 1;
i f(count > 0 && count <= 360){
The artwork creates a new digital fabric every ten draw();
minutes. Drawing the digital fabric is an important }
visual aspect of the artwork and takes about five i f(count > 465){
var cc=document. getEl ementById("
minutes. canvas1" ). getContext(" 2d" );
cc. restore();
The fabric colour is random and the thread colours cc. cl earRect(0, 0, canvasWi dth,
are random within +/- 45 degrees of the fabric colour canvasHei ght);
i ni ti al i ze();
on the HSLA (Hue - Saturation - Lightness - Alpha) count = 0;
colour wheel. }
}
Pi Canvas sample artwork code functi on draw() {
var cc=document. getEl ementById(
Here is a sample artwork file which draws a " canvas1" ). getContext(" 2d" );
"starburst" approximately every 1 0 seconds. The fi berHue = hue + Math. si n(Math. random()
hues remain within 30 degrees of the initial, random * Math. PI * 2) * dhue;
fi berCol or = " hsl a(" + fi berHue +
hue on the HSLA colour wheel. " , 100%, 50%, 1)" ;
cc. rotate(Math. random() * Math. PI*2);
What happens if you change the values of dhue or
tensi on ? for(var j =0; j < 200; j ++){
x = x + Math. random() * 2;
y = y + Math. si n(Math. random() *
Math. PI * 2) * tensi on;
<! DOCTYPE html > cc. fi l l Styl e = fi berCol or;
<html > cc. fi l l Rect(x, y, 2, 1);
<head> }
<meta charset=" UTF- 8" >
<ti tl e>Starburst</ti tl e> x = 0;
<scri pt type=" appl i cati on/j avascri pt" > y = 0;
var i nterval = 10; }
var canvasWi dth = 800; </scri pt>
var canvasHei ght = 600; </head>
var x = 0;
var y = 0; <body onl oad=" i ni ti al i ze()" styl e=
var count = 0; " margi n: 0px; border: 0px; paddi ng: 0px;
var hol d = 1000; background- col or: #000000;
var hue = Math. random() * 360; overfl ow: hi dden; " >
var dhue = 30; <canvas i d=" canvas1" wi dth=" 800"
var tensi on = 1; hei ght=" 600" />
var fi berHue = hue + Math. si n(Math. </body>
random() * Math. PI * 2) * dhue; </html >

10
 SMARTDRIVE ROBOT
Using the SmartDrive add on board

How to control a robot with a

joystick Rishi Deshpande
Guest Writer
SKILL LEVEL : BEGINNER

The Raspberry Pi is amazing in the sense that it This is the code to create the joystick object:
can be used to create programs for almost any
purpose. I've seen people create media centres, try:
cloud storage devices, weather stations, video j = pygame. j oysti ck. J oysti ck(0)
j . i ni t()
game emulators and various other pri nt ' Enabl ed j oysti ck: ' + j . get_name()
implementations on this little computer. except pygame. error:
pri nt ' no j oysti ck found. '
However, I wanted to start off with something
that didn't require lots of software maintenance A try-except block is recommended because it
and decided upon creating a remote-controlled is important to be able to catch the exception of a
robot. The hardware specifics of this robot will pygame. error for debugging purposes.
vary from user to user, therefore I want to focus
on the coding required to get the robot to move.
I use a joystick to control my robot. To control the
motors I use a SmartDrive controller. This is a
motor driver that allows you to control up to two
high current motors with the Raspberry Pi.
When starting this program, it is important to
import the following modules:
i mport pygame
i mport sys, os
from SmartDri ve i mport SmartDri ve
When creating the code to actually move the
The pygame module is used to create a joystick robot, it is helpful to create a separate function
object, the sys module is to be able to quit the for that purpose.
program when prompted and the os module is to
read the string environment. The function is as follows:

12
 def move(motor, speed):
di recti on = 1
i f(speed < 0):
di recti on = 0
speed = speed * -1
i f speed > 100:
speed = 100
SmartDri ve. SmartDri ve_Run_Unl i mi ted(
motor, di recti on, speed)
When the di recti on is 0, the motor will run
backwards and when the di recti on is 1 , the
motor will run forwards. The SmartDrive speed
ranges from 0-1 00 therefore it is important to
keep within this scale. This function can now be
called whenever prompted.
When starting on the main loop of the program,
please note that scaling for the joystick axis is
required. The get_axi s function from pygame
ranges from -1 to 1 , with 0 being centered.
Therefore we need to scale by 1 00 to be able to
use the axis values for the speed parameter in
the above move function. The main loop code is
as follows:
whi l e True:
pygame. event. get()
x1 = 100 * j . get_axi s(0)
y1 = 100 * j . get_axi s(1)
i f j . get_button(1):
move(1, 0)
move(2, 0)
sys. exi t(1)
l Motor = x1 + y1
rMotor = x1 - y1
move(1, l Motor)
move(2, -rMotor)
The get_button function is used to quit the
program and stop the robot from running.
I have listed all of the electrical parts, motors and
other hardware that I have used for this project. I
would also recommend checking out your local
scrapyard for any motors that you would like to
use instead of buying them. My recommendation
would be to look for window motors, or electric
toy car motors. I decided to use the SmartDrive
because it is capable of supporting up to 300W
per motor, though I only used motors that ran at
22W each! There is definitely more headroom to
use the SmartDrive for more serious projects.
As mentioned previously, the SmartDrive allows
the Raspberry Pi to control up to two high current
motors. The SmartDrive is controlled by the
Raspberry Pi using the I 2C interface.
The programming interface (API) is coded in
Python and contains various different functions
that allow you to control the motors in a variety of
different ways. Two motors can be connected to
the SmartDrive the two black screw terminals
labeled M1 and M2. (The third black screw
terminal is for power.) It is also possible to
program the SmartDrive with the C language.
There are functions that allow you to run the
motor in terms of degrees turned, time run in
seconds and even for a certain number of
rotations. It also supports rotary encoders. A nice
bonus feature of the SmartDrive is that it is
capable of providing a 5V output which can be
used to power the Raspberry Pi without using
another power source.
Parts List:
1 . SmartDrive:
http://www.openelectrons.com/pages/34
2. Tempest TR1 .3-1 2 Battery (1 2V):
http://www.tempestbatteries.com/html/tr1 .3-
1 2.html
3. DreamGrear Shadow USB wireless joystick:
http://www.dreamgear.net/shadow-6-wireless-
controller-for-ps3-1 .html
4. 2x Pittman GM9234E765-R1 motors:
http://www.gearseds.com/competition_motor
.html
13
 MASHBERRY
Homebrewing

Homebrewing with the

Raspberry Pi Sebastian
Duell
Guest Writer
SKILL LEVEL : ADVANCED

Introduction
When you are into homebrewing, you are faced
with different problems. Brewing equipment,
preferably, should be low priced. When doing all-
grain brewing, there is also the need for a system
that can control the temperature of the mash at
different points and at different times.
There are professional brewing controllers
available, but these are very expensive. So the
idea was to build a cheap brewing-controller
mainly from standard components. The controller
should have a graphic display, a web interface The first step in brewing is the mashing. During
for configuration and a recipe management this step the starch of the malt is converted to
system to make brewing different sorts of beer sugar and extracted from the malt so the wort is
easier. The Raspberry Pi seemed to be ideal. obtained. (Wort is the liquid extracted from the
mashing process during the brewing of beer.)
Brewing beer
The conversion of the starch to sugar is done by
Beer is made from malt, hops, water and yeast. the enzymes contained in the malt. To optimise
To get a beer out of these ingredients, several the conversion to sugar by the enzymes, multiple
processing steps are needed. These steps are in resting periods at different temperatures are
general: needed. These temperatures have to be held for
specific times. That's the point where MashBerry
Mashing is used.
Lautering
Hop boiling After mashing, the malt is separated from the
Fermentation wort in a process called lautering. It is basically a

14
kind of filtering. After the lautering, the wort is
boiled with hops. In this step, the beer gets hop
flavours and bitterness.
Additionally, some chemical processes take
place while boiling. These processes, for
example, will clean the wort from the proteins.
After boiling, the wort is cooled down and yeast is
added to ferment the beer (in this step, the yeast
is producing the alcohol).
After fermentation the beer is bottled and aged
for several weeks or months, depending on the
type of beer. Then it's ready to drink.
Hardware
To use a Raspberry Pi as a brewing controller,
two main interfaces had to be added. The first
interface is a temperature sensor for measuring
the temperature of the mash. There are two
possibilities for temperature sensors: a cheap
DS1 820 sensor or a more accurate PT1 000
sensor with a Hygrosens I 2C converter module.
The Hygrosens module (THMOD-I2C-R2) is a
small module with an I 2C interface that directly
converts the value read from a PT1 000 sensor to
a usable temperature. To use this converter an
I 2C level shifter between 5V and 3V3 is needed
to connect it to the Raspberry Pi.
As an alternative, a DS1 820 sensor can be used.
There are sensors with the appropriate metal
housing and temperature range (>1 00 C)
available. These sensors can be connected to
the Raspberry Pi using only a single resistor.
To control the electric heater of the mash
container, a solid state relay (SSR) is used. The
SSR is driven by a simple transistor circuit
connected to the GPIO of the Raspberry Pi. Such
a circuit also drives the piezo beeper. The SSR is
housed in an external box including power plugs
and filters.
For visualization a 3" TFT display is connected to
the Raspberry Pi's composite video port. An IR
receiver can be connected to the GPIO to enable
MashBerry to receive IR codes from a common
IR remote control.
15
 Software There is also a complete SD card image available.
It is based on Raspbian and includes the
The MashBerry software is built using the Qt MashBerry application, the framebuffer version
framework. The heart of it is the PID controller, of the Qt libraries and a modified Linux kernel,
which is used to control the temperature of the which is capable of driving the SSR relay via the
mash. The PID controller uses the temperatures GPIO in real-time.
of the temperature sensor as an input and
outputs a power value between 0-1 00%.
A PID controller is a controller with a feedback
loop. Each time the PID algorithm is triggered the
temperature error between the set point and the
actual temperature is calculated.
With this error, the old output value and the PID
parameters (Kp, Ki , Kd ), a new output value is
calculated using the three values called the
proportion, the integral and the derivative (PID).
The PID controller has the advantage (if properly
tuned) to reach a nearly constant temperature.
The power value from the PID is then fed into a
kernel driver which controls the GPIO in real-
time. This driver is basically a hack of the
system's timer interrupt, where the switching of
the GPIO takes place.
The driver does the switching from 0-1 00% in
two seconds. One percent of output power
results in 20ms of on-time for the SSR. At 50Hz
mains frequency this is one AC cycle per
percent. With this method the power of the heater
can be controlled very accurately.
The PID parameters can also be autotuned.
More info about PID controllers can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller.
The MashBerry application runs on a Linux
system without X1 1 , using the embedded version
of Qt4 which runs directly on the framebuffer. So
very little resources are used.
The software can be downloaded from http://
sebastian-duell.de/en/mashberry/downloads.html

16
Building a MashBerry
To build a MashBerry you need the following
parts:

Raspberry Pi and SD card

Power supply with 5V and 1 2V
Housing
2x BC547B transistor
2x 1 50R resistor
2x 1 00K resistor
3x 1 K5 resistor
DS1 8B20 temperature sensor
1 2V Piezo beeper
26-pin header for Raspberry Pi connector
Solid state relay suitable for your power needs

Optional:
TSOP31 236 IR-receiver
3" TFT Display

Reference
Helpful information on the beer brewing process
can be found at http://www.brewwiki.com.

Brewing is the production of beer through the

fermentation of extracts from malted grains -
traditionally barley or wheat. Malted grains are
made by allowing grains to germinate and then
drying them in kilns. The malting process
develops enzymes necessary for converting
complex starches into sugars.

Mashing is a step in the brewing process that

combines crushed malts with hot water in a mash
tun to convert complex starches into simple
sugars that are more readily fermented. There
are many variations of mashing, but the single
infusion mash is easily done with home
equipment and suitable for most popular beer
styles.

Lautering is a process in brewing beer in which

the mash is separated into the clear liquid wort
and the residual grain. Lautering usually consists
of 3 steps: mashout, recirculation and sparging.

17
 PIBOT
Give your Raspberry Pi robot powers

Add the power of speech, hearing

and vision to your robot - Part 2 Harry Gee
Guest Writer
SKILL LEVEL : INTERMEDIATE

Introduction A speaker gives the robot the power to talk,

make interesting sounds and play music. Adding
Part 1 of this article in Issue 25 provided an a microphone adds the ability of voice
introduction to robotics and gave practical tips recognition as well as sensing the robot's
for how you can build a fun little robot with your acoustic environment.
Raspberry Pi. In this second part we will cover
some more advanced explorations into
Raspberry Pi robotics and demonstrate how the
Raspberry Pi can be used to create some
impressive robotic behaviours and systems.
Three areas will be introduced that each have
immense value for useful robotics. These are text
to speech, voice recognition and computer
vision. Each of these relate to an aspect of
human centric abilities - speech, hearing and
vision. We saw in Part 1 how robotics is about
making computing real world and also that useful
robots can sense, process and then act in the
world intelligently. In each of our chosen areas
we will introduce the technology and give a
simple example of how it can be used to do
something interesting in a robotic application. First let's cover making a Raspberry Pi robot talk
using text-to-speech.
The first two areas, text-to-speech and voice
recognition, are both to do with sound. With a low Power of Speech
cost microphone, a speaker and a Raspberry Pi,
a world of possibilities opens up and this has The best text-to-speech (or TTS) solution I have
been a reason why Ive included them in my found for the Raspberry Pi is eSpeak. It has a
PiBot project that I have been developing. good range of voices and is not too resource

18
intensive (meaning it leaves processing power
for other things too!). As well as being
lightweight, eSpeak provides a simple and
straight-forward command line interface that can
be easily integrated into Python, as well as other
languages. It even allows us to record straight to
a WAV sound file with a simple option in the
command line. Best of all, it has a Stephen
Hawking-esque sound that gives it a fitting dose
of panache. It is also good fun finding out what it
mispronounces!
To get started, the best thing to do is to just try
installing eSpeak and see if it works "out of the
box". If you are not using HDMI audio, do not
forget to have an amplified speaker or
headphones plugged in to your Raspberry Pi.
For help in setting up audio, or for debugging any
audio problems you have, please see this great
post on Raspberry Pi Spy (http://www.raspberry
pi-spy.co.uk/201 3/06/raspberry-pi-command-line
-audio/).
To install eSpeak, on the command line enter:
sudo apt- get i nstal l espeak
This will install the espeak and espeak- data
packages. Try issuing a command straight to
eSpeak:
espeak " Hel l o, can we be fri ends?"
The first time eSpeak runs it will probably have a
short delay before speaking, which seems to
disappear on subsequent executions. You will
also probably get quite a long list of warnings
about "ALSA lib", "server sockets" and the "jack
server". These are harmless and can be ignored.
The important thing is that it speaks to you!
More details of TTS and working with eSpeak
can be found at http://espeak.sourceforge.net.
Now that we can give a Raspberry Pi robot the
power of speech, what do you think it could be
used for? Maybe it could let you know whenever
you have new email and read it out aloud. Im
sure you can thinking of several other things.
As a simple code example let's consider our
PiBots speech being triggered every time it
bumps into something. Here we have added a
hardware switch that gets triggered everytime it
bumps into anything. From our PiBot Python
library we have exposed this event as a function
called Pi Bot. i sBumped .
from espeak i mport espeak
i mport Pi Bot
i mport random
def bumpRepl y():
i f Pi Bot. i sBumped():
responses = [' Ouch, that hurt! ' ,
' Watch where you are goi ng! ' ,
' Ouch, be careful ! ' ]
speak = random. choi ce(responses)
espeak. synth(speak)
Power of Hearing
One very promising project I have discovered for
robotics is called Jasper. This project claims that
you can control anything with your voice and their
website goes on to explain that, " Jasper is an
open source platform for developing always-on,
voice controlled applications".
For years voice control has been an aspirational
technology for the worlds most advanced (and
expensive) robots and it is remarkable that this
free software now makes this achievable with an
inexpensive Raspberry Pi robot.
Jasper works by identifying specific spoken
words (trigger words) that then can activate an
action (e.g. execute a Python function). The
spoken words that you want to use as triggers
are given to Jasper through a string list. Each
Python script that you want to use with Jasper
needs to contain a string list called WORDS , an
i sVal i d() function and a handl e() function.
The i sVal i d() function relates to words being
recognised and the handl e() function relates to
actions that occur.
The WORDS string array holds the words that you
want to extract from the speech. As an example,
let's choose the single word dance. We will
declare it like this:
19
 WORDS = [dance]
We will also want to set the priority this script has
over other scripts. The higher the number, the
more important and further in front of other
scripts with similar words it will be. We will set
ours at 1 0 for now. If there is another script with
priority less than 1 0, and it has dance in its
WORDS array, then our script will be used because
it has a higher priority.
PRIOIRTY = 10
The i sVal i d() function checks the transcripted
text input from Jasper's audio recognition engine,
to determine if this is the correct script. This will
check the input from the user and return true if
this script is related to the input text.
def i sVal i d(text):
return bool (re. search(r' \bdance\b' ,
text, re. IGNORECASE))
The handl e() function will basically perform an
action in relation to the input. Here is where
Jasper will respond to the input. You will need to
pass text , mi c and profi l e as variables which
give you more options with Jasper. In this
example I get Jasper to acknowledge that it is
going to dance and then call a function from our
PiBot script to get Jasper dancing!
def handl e(text, mi c, profi l e):
mi c. say(Yeah, sure, watch these
moves. )
Pi Bot. dance
20
Here is the full script:
__author__ = ' al exgray'
i mport Pi Bot
i mport re
WORDS = [" dance" ]
PRIORITY = 10
def i s_val i d(text):
"""
Return True i f i nput rel ates to " dance"
Arguments:
text -- user-i nput, typi cal l y
transcri bed speech
"""
return bool (re. search(r' \bdance\b' ,
text, re. IGNORECASE))
def handl e(text, mi c, profi l e):
"""
Makes Pi Bot dance
Arguments:
text -- user-i nput, typi cal l y
transcri bed speech
mi c -- used to i nteract wi th the user
(for both i nput and output)
profi l e -- contai ns i nformati on rel ated
to the user (e. g. phone #)
"""
l i ne = " Watch these moves! "
mi c. say(l i ne)
Pi Bot. dance
More details on Jasper can be found at
http://jasperproject.github.io.
Power of Vision
The third area of advanced Raspberry Pi
robotics is computer vision. With the Raspberry
Pis HD camera module you now have the power
to capture visual data. Recently the excellent
open source computer vision library OpenCV
was implemeted on the Raspberry Pi. This now
gives great processing capabilities for analysing
visual data and opens up a world of possibilities
and useful applications. Face recognition, blob
tracking, motion detection and gesture mapping
are all possible using OpenCV on the Raspberry
Pi. It is of course very exciting to implement
these things on a robot. First of all though we will
need to install OpenCV on our Raspberry Pi.
We followed a guide from Adafruit to get
OpenCV working with our project. You can read
it at https://learn.adafruit.com/raspberry-pi-face-
recognition-treasure-box. This also contains links
to the image capture, training and configuration
scripts mentioned below.
In order to be able to recognise a face we need a
number of pictures of that person. We can do
that with the Python script capture-
posi ti ves. py. This accesses the Raspberry Pi
camera so needs to run as root:
sudo python capture-posi ti ves. py
Multiple images of the same face should be
taken from different angles. We use these
images to train the face recognition model. This
will take some minutes to finish. Enter:
python trai n. py
After this part we will have to adjust the
confi g. py script in order to configure our servo
motors movement. The various options are
detailed in the above link and will vary depending
on your application.
The final Python script that we need initialises
the Raspberry Pi camera and performs the facial
recognition. This version of the code is adapted
from the box. py script from Tony Dicolas
OpenCV Facial Recognition project on GitHub
(https://github.com/tdicola/pi-facerec-box). This
script detects a single face and is the code we
need to run our Raspberry Pi in face recognition
mode.
__author__ = ' al exgray adapted from
ori gi nal code by Tony Di col a'
##Ful l source:
https: //gi thub. com/tdi col a/pi -facerec-box
i mport cv2
i mport confi g
i mport face
def i ni t_camera():
camera = confi g. get_camera()
return camera
def face_detect(camera):
## Get i mage from camera
i mage = camera. read()
## Convert i mage to grayscal e
i mage = cv2. cvtCol or(i mage,
cv2. COLOR_RGB2GRAY)
## Get coordi nates of si ngl e face i n
captured i mage
## Coords wi l l mean a face was detected
resul t = face. detect_si ngl e(i mage)
## If no face return Fal se, el se True
i f resul t i s None:
return Fal se
el se:
return True
def mai n():
## Ini ti al i se the camera
camera = i ni t_camera()
whi l e True:
# If we see a face, i s i t recogni sed?
i f face_detect(camera):
pri nt(" Hi there, ni ce to meet you! " )
Robotic Future
These topics are quite advanced so if youve
managed to follow this article completely then
you are doing very well!
There are lots of resources online if you want to
explore any of these topics further. In particular a
number of detailed articles are found on the
PiBot website at http://www.pibot.org/how-to and
we will be adding more as our adventures into
Raspberry Pi robotics continue!
We are now working on computer vision, voice
recognition and text-to-speech for our PiBot
robot and all this code will be open source and
shared with the community too. I dont know
about you but we are excited about making use
of the incredible software that is now available on
the Raspberry Pi for robotics. Thanks to the
Raspberry Pi and its community we can now
make a robot that is able to hear you, recognise
your face and speak to you as well! Exciting
times indeed!
Thanks to Aldi Rina, Alex Gray and Steph
Tyszka from PiBot for their contributions to this
article.
21
 MODEL B+
First look and introduction

A brief introduction to the

latest Raspberry Pi hardware Aaron Shaw

release MagPi Writer

The first Model B Raspberry Pi was originally as some of the more eagle eyed of you may have
launched for sale on the 29th February 201 2. In noticed, more recently (around April 201 4) the
two short years our favourite little computer has USB hub and LAN chip on the Model B had also
racked up some pretty serious sales with over 3 been upgraded from a LAN951 2 to a LAN951 4
million units sold to date and there are no signs chip as well as a general redesign of the PCB.
of the rate of sale tailing off anytime soon. The Looking at the documentation that comes in the
Raspberry Pi is here to stay - that is now a well box with the Raspberry Pi, it looks like the
known fact. Both the Foundation and the change may have been related to FCC class B
community that surrounds the Raspberry Pi have device certification. However, the change in
produced some incredible software and LAN/USB chip is likely to have also been a
hardware and has achieved some pretty hardware trial of sorts before the more obvious
amazing things - balloon flights to space, visits to changes were made in the Model B+, which
Buckingham Palace and perhaps most actually make use of the additional functionality
importantly (and most relevantly to the present in the upgraded LAN/USB chip.
Foundation's charitable goals) inspiring a huge
number of people to get involved with computing,
electronics and STEM.
As you probably already know, in the early hours
(UK time) on the 1 4th July 201 4 the Raspberry
Pi Foundation announced the latest hardware
upgrade - the Raspberry Pi Model B+. This
represents the first major hardware change to
the Raspberry Pi board since the upgrade of the
Model B hardware to 51 2 MB of RAM in October
201 2. There had been some minor changes to
various components in the interim period (likely
due to pricing and supply issues or similar) as
well as the release of both the Camera Module,
Pi NoIR and the Compute Module. Additionally, New Raspberry Pi packaging

22
Where to buy?
As per usual, the Raspberry Pi Model B+ is
available to purchase from the two main
distributors - RS Components and Farnell
element 1 4 and their subsidiaries. It is also
already in stock, along with a selection of
accessorries, at a number of independent
retailers across the world.
the relocation of the 3.5mm jack, removal of the
RCA video output jack (the composite video
signal has been relocated to the fourth pole on
the 3.5mm jack) and the addition of four squarely
positioned mounting holes. The new microSD
card holder is now of the push-push type so it is
held securely in place (when compared to the
friction fit of the old one) and also gives a nice
"click" when it is correctly inserted!

First impressions
Whether the Model B+ board that you purchase
has originated from an RS Components or
Farnell batch, the first thing you are likely to
notice is the fantastic new packaging designs as
can be seen on the picture on the bottom of the
last page. My personal preference is the Farnell
packaging, however they are both a significant
improvement on the original packaging (basically
a plain white box) and the product already looks
far more professional with that simple step.
Comparison between Model B and Model B+ boards

You will probably also notice from the

comparison picture that the USB ports no longer
hang off the edge as far and are now lined up
with the Ethernet port. There has also been a
general tidy up of the design and the major ports
(excluding the GPIO and DSI connectors) now all
lie on just 2 sides of the board. Obviously some

Opening the box and taking a look at the new

board the changes are fairly obvious, and this is
even more apparent if you look at the picture to
the right comparing the new Model B+ with the
old Model B. The most important changes, in my
opinion, are the inclusion of a 40 way GPIO
header instead of 26 on the Model B, four USB
ports instead of two and the change to using a
microSD card instead of a full size one. As
mentioned above, this change to 4 USB ports is
possible due to the change to a new LAN/USB
chip (LAN951 4). This is the little black chip just
behind the USB ports. Further changes include Comparison between RS Components (left) and Farnell
element1 4 (right) boards

23
 of the connectors have had to be shifted around
slightly to accomodate this. This should allow for
some much neater cabling for home cinema and
professional installations where neat installation
is very important. For people who like neatness
and aesthetics, the round edges on the new PCB
are probably also a welcome addition! Looking at
the top of the board there are now only two LEDs
on the top (power and activity), and they have
been relocated to the same side as the DSI port.
The Ethernet connection and activity lights are
still present but are now located inside the
Ethernet jack itself which both looks great and
saves space.
Looking at the comparison of the Model B+
boards from the different suppliers on the
previous page, there are some small differences
in component selection (see the USB, HDMI, CSI
and DSI ports). I am not sure if this is down to the
manufacturers sourcing components of their own
or whether this is just a coincidence. In either
case, the boards are both made in the Sony
factory in Wales and look fantastic.
There are some less noticeable changes "under
the hood" with the Model B+ getting an updated
power circuit that replaces linear regulators with
switched ones in order to reduce power
consumption by up to 1 Watt. The audio circuit
also now incorporates a dedicated low-noise
power supply which should improve the quality
somewhat and the USB ports can now be fed
with up to 1 .2 Amps as well as featuring better
overcurrent and hotplug behaviour (plugging and
unplugging devices while the Raspberry Pi is
running).
Getting started
Hopefully you, like me, are fortunate enough to
use an SD card with the Raspberry Pi that is
actually a microSD card in a holder. Personally I
use the official SD card with the Raspberry Pi
logo silk screened on the holder. This means I
did not have to purchase a new SD card in order
to get started with the Model B+. However due to
the new firmware needed, it is not necessarily
24
quite as easy as just swapping the SD card out
of the old Model B and into the Model B+. There
are a few steps you may need to undertake first.
This is especially important if you have not
updated your operating system in a while.
Open an LX Terminal window and type the
following to make sure the software on your SD
card is up to date:
sudo apt- get update
sudo apt- get upgrade
Raspberry Pi HATs
With the update to the Model B+, the Raspberry
Pi Foundation also recently announced the
specification for what they are calling HATs
(Hardware Attached on Top). The idea is to have
a more regulated framework for add on boards
as well as just having a nice name to use for
them (similar to Beaglebone Capes and Arduino
Shields). The specification outlines a mechanical
shape, as can be seen in the picture below,
which makes use of the 40 pin header as well as
all four of the mounting holes.
All HATs must also have an EEPROM on board
which will contain code that allows the Raspberry
Pi to automatically identify the add on board and
set up the GPIO pins and Linux drivers
necessary to get you up and running quickly -
which will be extremely useful in schools and
clubs with children and beginners.
Model B+ Raspberry Pi with mechanical sample of HAT board

Electronic measurement with
BitScope - Part 2
SKILL LEVEL : INTERMEDIATE
In last months article, we equipped the
Raspberry Pi with a BitScope Micro add-on
board and installed the BitScope digital storage
oscilloscope (DSO) software. Now we are ready
to delve into the fascinating field of electronic
measurement with a fully-fledged DSO.
Fig. 1 : BitScope DSO software main screen elements
(photo courtesy by BitScope Designs)
In Part 1 you learnt that an oscilloscope
measures electrical voltages. So lets start by
measuring the voltage of the Raspberry Pi itself.
Identify the channel control pad for Channel A (7)
and set it to 2V per Div. This means that one
square of the y-axis on the main screen
26
OSCILLOSCOPE
Add-on board
Karl-Ludwig
Butte
Guest Writer
represents 2V. With 8 squares stacked up on the
Y-axis we are able to measure a maximum of
1 6V. Now connect the red test lead to pin CHA
and the black test lead to pin GND, opposite pin
CHA on the BitScope Micro. Fig. 2 shows the pin
layout of the BitScope Micro to help you to select
the right pins.
Fig. 2: Pin layout of the BitScope Micro (photo courtesy by
BitScope Designs)
Press the top of the black test lead down, so that
the metal gripper appears at the opposite side
and connect to pin 6 of the GPIO on the
Raspberry Pi. Do the same with the red test lead
but connect it to pin 2 of the GPIO. Fig. 3 shows
the setup.

Fig. 3: Measuring +5V on the GPIO pins 2 and 6 of the
Raspberry Pi
Look at the main screen of the BitScope DSO
(1 ). The x-axis is the line in the middle and has
small vertical lines to sub-divide each square.
This is our 0V line. But our yellow beam is in the
middle of the third square above the x-axis.
Because we know there is a voltage of 5V
between pin 2 (the plus pole) and pin 6 (the
minus pole), and we set the channel control to 2V
per Div, so the horizontal line indicates exactly
this voltage. In Fig. 4 I have inserted an extra
scale in red on the y-axis to help you interpret the
screen.
A (7) to an appropriate value. While working with
an oscilloscope you should always be aware
about the settings of the instrument and the
expected voltages in the circuit.
Is this NE555 timer IC still working?
In our next experiment we want to find out if a
NE555 timer IC is still functional. This IC is often
used when a clock signal is required. For this
experiment we need:
2x 1 K resistors (R1 , R2)
0.1 F capacitor (C1 )
1 0 nF capacitor (C2)
NE555 timer IC (IC1 )
small breadboard
test leads provided with the BitScope Micro
Fig. 5 shows the circuit diagram and Fig.6 shows
you how to implement this circuit on a
breadboard.

Fig. 5: Circuit diagram of the clock generator

Fig. 4: Measuring +5V between the Rasperry Pi GPIO

pins 2 and 6.

You may get a reference measurement with your

multimeter, if you like. Could we measure other
and higher voltages than 5V? Sure, but what
about our input range? We have to change the
input range with the channel control for Channel Fig. 6: Implementation on a breadboard

27
 When you have finished building the clock
generator on the breadboard, set the time base
control (6) to 50 sec per Div and the channel
control pad for Channel A (7) to 2V per Div.
Additionally, set the trigger controls (4) to MEAN.
Our Raspberry Pi has enough power to supply
the +5V the clock generator needs. Therefore
connect a blue test lead from pin 6 of the
Raspberry Pi GPIO (Gnd) to the Gnd connection
of the breadboard and a green test lead from pin
2 of the Raspberry Pi GPIO (+5V) to the Vcc
connection of the breadboard.
Two more test lead connections are needed.
Connect pin 3 of the NE555 with CHA of the
BitScope Micro and connect Gnd of the
breadboard with Gnd of the BitScope Micro,
opposite CHA.
Phew! Things can get complicated fast. Look at
Fig. 7 and make sure you have all the
connections right.
Fig. 7: Connecting the clock generator to the Raspberry Pi
and BitScope Micro
Look at the main screen of the BitScope DSO
software (1 ) and you should see a similar square
wave, as shown in Fig. 8.
28
Fig. 8: Output of the clock generator circuit
This square wave proves that our NE555 is still
functional and could be used for our next
electronics project. If you do not see a square
wave, check your circuit for any errors. If all
connections between the different parts and the
Raspberry Pi are ok and you still dont get a
square wave it can be assumed that the NE555,
or one of the other components, is defective.
If your clock generator is operational you may try
to find out the frequency with which your clock
generator is running. For the answer you should
look at Fig. 8 (or the measurement on your own
screen) and remember what I wrote about
measuring frequencies in Part 1 last month. As
an aid, I have drawn a line in red on the output
diagram showing that the period of the square
wave is 200 sec.
In this second part we measured voltage and
frequency. In the next part there will be some
more experiments with the clock generator and
how to put an oscilloscope to good use.
The BitScope Micro add-on board is available
from BitScope Designs in Australia
(http://www.bitscope.com), in Germany from
BUTTE publishing company (http://www.butte-
verlag.de), in the UK from Pimoroni
(http://shop.pimoroni.com) and in Switzerland
from (http://www.pi-shop.ch). A German
translation of this article is available at
http://www.butte-verlag.de.

Using Asterisk to implement a
low cost telephone system
SKILL LEVEL : INTERMEDIATE
After investigating a number of technology solutions
that provide VoIP (Voice-over-Internet Protocol) and
IP telephony services, including support for the new
trend of UC (Unified Communications) for small
businesses, I personally concluded that the
Raspberry Pi is able to deliver a totally viable and
very low cost solution. When compared to the $1 00's
needed to invest in a dedicated server for a VoIP/UC
solution, the cost of a Raspberry Pi and accessories
is unmatched.
The Raspberry Pi solution is based on Raspbian
running the Asterisk VoIP/UC software. This open
source solution provides a high degree of
configuration and of course can be used for a
multitude of solutions and applications in different
areas.
This article demonstrates that VoIP/UC solutions are
not high risk and do not require high implementation
costs.
Introduction
Telephony has evolved rapidly over the past few
decades, migrating from analogue communications to
digital communications and IP telephony based on
VoIP. This also enables Unified Communications -
the integration of real-time communication services
such as instant messaging (chat), telephony, data
30
VOIP SERVER
Raspberry Pi telephone system
Walberto Abad
Guest Writer
sharing, video conferencing, speech recognition, etc.
with non-real-time communication services such as
voicemail, email, SMS and fax. UC is not necessarily
a single product, but a set of products that provides a
consistent, unified, user-interface and user-
experience across multiple devices and media-types
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_communications)
VoIP is the transmission of voice over the internet
using protocols such as SIP (Session Initiation
Protocol) and RTP (Real-time Transport Protocol),
among others.
Baseline
To implement a VoIP/UC solution, the system must
meet various industry standards plus the network
equipment must be able to differentiate and prioritise
voice and video applications over other types of data
usage.
Basic Components
The hardware and software requirements are simple.
You probably just need to download the software.
Hardware:
Raspberry Pi Model B/B+
4 GB SD card (minimum)
1 A power supply
 Network cable
Optional SIP phone or SIP adapter (this article uses
the Dlink DPH-1 50SE)

Software: The next thing you need to do is set up a static IP

Raspbian
Asterisk communications software
LinPhone soft phone (supports iOS, Android,
Blackberry, Linux, Windows and OSX). You can
download this from http://www.linphone.org.
address. You need to specify the static IP address
you want to use, the network mask and the gateway
of your router or cable modem. The,
i fconfi g

I n stal l ati on command will provide your current IP address and

For the initial setup you may need to use a USB
keyboard and mouse with the Raspberry Pi, plus a
connection to a monitor. Once configured, the
Raspberry Pi will run "headless".
the network mask. Your new static IP will have the
same first three octets as your current IP. The last
octet must be outside the range that your router uses
for dynamic IP addresses. To find the gateway
address, enter:

The best and easiest way to get the Asterisk software netstat -r
is to download the latest SD card image at
http://www.raspberry-asterisk.org/downloads. This Edit the i nterfaces file with the command:
contains Raspbian with the Asterisk communication
software and FreePBX GUI pre-installed. The image nano /etc/network/i nterfaces
is written to the SD card following the steps at
http://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation Your i nterfaces file will look something like the
/installing-images/. screenshot below.

When the system starts, login as root with the Note that you need to replace the word dhcp on the
password raspberry. If you wish, you can do this eth0 line with the word stati c . Also be sure to press
remotely. On Windows install the PuTTY SSH client the <Tab> key once to get the desired indendation.
and connect using root@raspbx. On an Apple Mac,
simply open the Terminal and enter ssh
root@raspbx. l ocal . Later you will want to disable
root login via SSH as this is a security weakness.
Once logged in, the first command you want to run is:
raspbx-upgrade

This will update all the software to the latest version,

including Raspbian and the kernel.

31
 Once saved, reboot to use your new network settings.
From now on you can use either the static IP or the
raspbx hostname. For example, when using PuTTY
to connect with the static IP address above, I can
now use root@172. 31. 15. 11 .
Asterisk configuration
We are now going to use the FreePBX graphical user
interface to configure the Asterisk software. This
helps to make the process simple and easy. The
FreePBX software came pre-installed with the
Asterisk image.
An example architecture diagram is shown below.
To start FreePBX open a web browser and enter
http: //raspbx or your static IP. (For Apple Mac you
will enter http: //raspbx. l ocal ). This will open the
FreePBX Administration page.
There are three options:
1 ) FreePBX Administration is used to configure
Asterisk
2) User Control Panel is for users to adjust their
personal settings
3) Get Support opens the FreePBX website.
Click on FreePBX Admi ni strati on . The default
login is admi n , with the password admi n . The
32
Applications menu has various options including
Extensions, Conferences and Ring Groups. Click on
Extensi ons .
As no extensions exist, you will add a new extension.
For the Device option choose Generi c SIP Devi ce
then click on Submi t to go to the next page. There
are many options but we will just set the User
Extension to 300, the Display Name to Wal berto and
the secret option to ext300. Click on Submi t to add
the extension.
On the right side of the screen, click on 300 to view
the extension you just added. Verify the port option is
set to 5060. Click on Submi t , then click on the red
Appl y Confi g button to save your changes.
Repeat this procedure for the other extensions that
you want to create. I created extensions 301 and 302.
We now configure the IP phone extensions. This will
vary by device but we will use the Dlink DPH-1 50SE
as an example. The important settings are to disable
the DHCP option, verify the SIP Phone Port Number
is 5060, the Registrar Server is the IP address of your
Raspberry Pi and in the Others section we enable the
Regi ster wi th Proxy option.
For the SIP Account Settings option we enter the
details we previously used when adding extensions
using FreePBX. The Authentication User Name is the
extension number and the Authentication Password
is the secret entry (i.e. ext300).
 You will then be asked for a password. For extension
302 I set this to be ext302 . Click OK and the
registration should be confirmed.
Softphone configuration
Start Linphone and from the Opti ons menu choose
Preferences . Confirm the Network settings are as
shown below.

With FreePBX and Asterisk you can implement

various services like conference rooms, IVR
(Interactive Voice Response), call groups, plus
incoming and outgoing calls via the normal PSTN,
SIP trunk lines or the internet.

In the Multimedia settings, verify that Echo

cancel l ati on is enabled. In Manage SIP Accounts
enter your display name. In my example the soft
phone is extension 302 so the username is 302 . The
resulting SIP address is <si p: 302@172. 31. 15. 7>.
Click the Add button to register the account with
Asterisk.
The Future
Enter your SIP identity from above and the SIP Proxy
address (i.e. the IP address of your Raspberry Pi). The development of communications using VoIP and
See the screenshot at the top of the next column for the internet is driving the convergence of Unified
details. Communications systems into a single system and
environment. FreePBX and Asterisk is a superb
example of how sophisticated communication
systems can be implemented for very low cost.

33
 Want to keep up to date with all things Raspberry Pi in your area?
Then this section of The MagPi is for you! We aim to list Raspberry Jam events in your area, providing
you with a Raspberry Pi calendar for the month ahead.
Are you in charge of running a Raspberry Pi event? Want to publicise it?
Email us at: editor@themagpi.com

Southend Raspberry Jam

When: Saturday 1 6th August 201 4, 1 0.00am to 5.00pm
Where: Tickfield Centre, Tickfield Avenue, Southend-on-Sea, SS2 6LL, UK
There will be talks, show and tell, workshops, videos, robots and lots of fun. Learn how to code in
Scratch, Blockly and Python. http://soslug.org/node/2023

Raspberry Jam Silicon Valley

When: Saturday 1 6th August 201 4, 1 .30pm to 4.30pm PDT
Where: Computer History Museum, 1 401 N. Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View, CA 94043, USA
Open to all and free to attend whether you are new or experienced with the Raspberry Pi.
http://www.eventbrite.com/e/8469381 1 47

Malvern Raspberry Jam

When: Wednesday 20th August 201 4, 3.45pm to 5.00pm (Student) and 7.30pm to 9.00pm (Adult)
Where: Wyche Innovation Centre, Walwyn Road, Upper Colwall, Malvern, WR1 3 6PL, UK
Come to be inspired, make friends and collaborate on new ideas. Student Jam:
http://www.eventbrite.com/e/1 0077559251 Adult Jam: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/1 1 053058997

Manchester Raspberry Jam 22

When: Saturday 30th August 201 4, 1 0.00am to 5.00pm
Where: The Shed, John Dalton West, Chester Street, Manchester, M1 5GD, UK
Everyone welcome. Opening talk around 1 0am, followed by hacking on whatever you want.
http://mcrraspjam.org.uk/next-event/ and http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1 2458883857

Soton, Winchester and Basingstoke Raspberry Pi Meeting

When: Wednesday 3rd September 201 4, 8.00pm to 1 0.00pm
Where: The Roebuck PH, Stockbridge Road, Winchester, SO23 7BZ, UK
Relaxed evening Q&A event over a beer with Raspberry Pi's running, no need to register. Contact
Dougie Lawson: dl1 ims@gmail.com
34
 Part 2: Variables, procedures and
sprites
SKILL LEVEL : BEGINNER
A few years ago I brought my old BBC Micro
down from the loft to show my kids how I started
in computing. To my surprise my two girls Molly
and Gracie, and my son
David were all intrigued
by the BASIC prompt and
the Syntax Error response
returned by about every
input.
They wanted to know more so we spent a few
days learning a few BASIC programming
commands and playing some classic games. It
got me thinking that wouldnt it be great to bring
back a computer in the same vein... something
that brought access to programming right to the
forefront just like it was back in the 1 980's.
The Raspberry Pi turned out to be the answer as
it retains many attributes of the BBC Micro such
as accessible GPIO ports. The only downside
was that it did not have a version of BASIC
directly suited to our needs. Enter Gordon
Henderson, the author of the WiringPi libraries,
who developed a version of BASIC called RTB
(Return To BASIC). If you have programmed in
BBC BASIC (arguably one of the best ever
versions of BASIC) then you will be very familiar
with RTB. It is designed specifically to support
the Raspberry Pi and its GPIO.
36
Jon Silvera
Guest Writer
A deal was struck between FUZE and Gordon to
produce FUZE BASIC, which includes a vast
array of enhancements.
These tailor FUZE BASIC
so it is more in line with the
requirements of the newly
revised UK IT curriculum.
At FUZE we focus on FUZE BASIC to deliver a
learning experience far more accessible to a
broader age range and ability group than more
complex languages. Quite simply, BASIC is
easier to pick up and learn than just about any
other language ever devised. You do not need to
be adept at maths, you do not need to
understand the operating system to any great
extent and you certainly dont need to have
programmed before.
While more experienced programmers might
scoff at us BASIC students, I assure you that
BASIC has something for everyone. Even the
most adept coders will find BASIC a great
platform to test out ideas and experiment.
Getting FUZE BASIC
I am very pleased to announce that FUZE BASIC
is available for FREE! Visit http://www.fuze.co.uk
click on Resources and then download the latest
FUZE boot image from the FUZE BASIC
Updates tab. The FUZE boot image is the same
as the Raspbian boot image, but configured with
the latest version of FUZE BASIC.
You will need to unzip the boot image file and
install it onto an SD card. Please note that you
need a minimum 8GB SD card. You also need
software to install the image onto the SD card.
Windows users can use Win32DiskImager, but
full installation details for Linux, MacOS and
Windows are available from the official
Raspberry Pi website at http://www.raspberrypi.
org/documentation/installation/installing-images/.
Next boot your Raspberry Pi with your new FUZE
image. There isnt
anything particularly
different with the boot
image compared to the
standard Raspbian
image, except for a new
Desktop background
image and a FUZE BASIC icon.
First, open the Fuze folder and then open the
Programs folder. Inside this, create a new folder
called MagPi .
We are going to create a game with this tutorial
so the next thing is to download the graphics.
Please go back to http://www.fuze.co.uk and to
the Resources page. Click on the Tutori al s
tab and download the six sprites contained in
'The MagPi Tutorial' section. These sprites are
the player's rocket ship, the enemy rocks and the
ever important bullet. Download and copy these
six files into the MagPi folder we created earlier.
On the FUZE desktop, double click the
FUZE BASIC icon to start FUZE
BASIC.
The welcome screen will appear and you will be
presented with the Ready> prompt.
Let's familiarise ourselves with the environment.
The Ready> prompt means you are in Direct
mode. Type in Hel l o and press <Enter>. You
will get the message, Equals expected. That is
exactly what should happen. The computer has
no idea what Hello means. Instead, enter:
Number1 = 10
Number2 = 10
Answer = Number1 + Number2
I suspect there are many of you who are already
more than comfortable with what is going on
here, but we need to explain to the newcomers.
Variables
The words Number1 , Number2 and Answer are
just names. They are called variables. Variables
are tags we store values in. We could have used
any name but generally it is best to use names
that make sense in the context of the program. If
we wrote a program using variables like N1 and
N2 and A then when we come back to the
program later we will have no idea what
everything means. However, variable names like
Shi pX and Shi pY are more obvious. Try and
make this a habit. You will appreciate it later.
So, we stored the number 1 0 in the variable
Number1 and 1 0 in the variable Number2 . We
then said that the variable Answer equals
Number1 + Number2 .
At this point you should know what the value of
Answer is. Do you? I hope so or were in big
trouble! Enter:
PRINT Answer
You should see 20.
If anything else whatsoever happens then
something has not gone to plan and you should
go back and check where you went wrong.
Direct mode and Edit mode
We are currently in Direct mode. This is where
we can enter commands and expect an
37
 immediate response. For example we can check
variables and enter simple instructions. Its not
programming though is it? Press F2 to enter the
FUZE BASIC Editor.
Useful commands/shortcuts in Direct mode
EXIT Exit and return to the desktop
DIR List files in the current folder
CD name Change to folder name
CD . . Go back one folder
LOAD name Load program name
SAVE name Save program name
NEW or F12 Clear program from memory
F2 Open the editor
RUN or F3 Run the current program
You will see a blank screen with a green flashing
cursor and a dotted line across the bottom. This
is the Editor environment. Here we can enter a
list of program instructions that can be saved and
executed (RUN) whenever we want.
Press F2 again. This will take you back to Direct
mode. Actually it will ask you for a file name. In
this first case dont bother, just press F2 again
and it will put you in Direct mode again. One last
time, press F2 again and you will be back in the
Editor. You get the idea - F2 takes you between
the Editor and Direct mode.
Hello MagPi
In the Editor enter the following program:
CYCLE
PRINT Hel l o MagPi
REPEAT
You dont actually need to worry about capitals
or lower case when entering commands. It is a
good habit in FUZE BASIC to type commands in
capitals, but it is not essential. However the
names we give to variables, as we did above
with Number1 and Answer etc., are set in stone.
If we give a variable the name NUMBER1 then we
must refer to it as such every time in our
38
program. Variable names are case-sensitive. If
we expect the variable numBER1 to return the
same result then we are in for a big surprise. The
variable numBER1 has not been defined so will
generate an error.
Enough of the dull stuff! You should at this point
be in the Editor with the program as listed on the
left. Press F3 . If at this point the program has not
been saved then it will ask you to do so. Just
enter a name like Hel l o and press <Enter>.
The program should then run. Hello MagPi
should display in a never ending list down the
screen.
To stop it, press the <Esc> key.
Press F2 to go back to the Editor and change the
program so that it looks like the following:
CYCLE
PRINT Hel l o MagPi ;
REPEAT
The only difference is that we have added a
space in between MagPi and the end quotation
mark and added a semi-colon to the end of the
PRINT line. The semi-colon tells BASIC to
display the next item immediately after the last
one and not on a new line. The space just puts a
gap in between. Press F3 to run the program
again. This time instead of a long list of Hello
MagPi going down the screen, this time it
displays Hello MagPi across the screen.
More about the Editor
Again, press <Esc> to exit the program and then
F12 to wipe the current program from memory.
You should have a blank screen in the Editor. If
not then try pressing F2 and F12 until you get
there. When you are in Direct mode you can type,
EXIT
to exit the program.
Right now we need to be in Direct mode with no
program in memory.
If you type,
NEW
in Direct mode it will clear the memory so when
you go into the Editor it will be blank. In direct
mode enter:
DIR
Among other things, you should see a directory
called MagPi , if you did everything above. Enter:
CD MagPi
This will put us in the same directory, or folder,
where we saved the sprites earlier. When we
create our program we want it to be in the same
folder as the sprites.
Press F2 to go to the Editor and enter the
following program:
// MagPi Game
PROC Setup
CYCLE
REPEAT
END
DEF PROC Setup
ENDPROC
Press F3 to run the program. The first time, it will
ask you for a file name. Enter MagPi and press
<Enter> . The FUZE BASIC Editor automatically
adds the file extension . fuze to file names.
When you press <Enter> the program will run
but nothing of any interest will happen as we
havent done anything of interest yet! If you have
entered anything incorrectly you may get an error
in which case F2 will take you back to the Editor.
If all is well, the screen will just go blank as the
program is in an infinite loop ( CYCLE / REPEAT).
Press the <Esc> key and then F2 to return to the
Editor. Note, you can get help at any time in the
Editor by pressing F1 .
This is the basic structure of our program. It is
important as we progress to try and build some
good habits. When naming variables a popular
method is called Camel Case. ThisIsCamelCase.
The reason we use it is because we are not
allowed to use spaces in variable names. Camel
Case (notice the humps) makes things readable
at a glance.
As you write larger programs another variable
issue will raise its head. Short, non-related
variable names WILL cause you grief later. A
200+ line program will be very difficult to
understand if you have used variable names like
pbx instead of Pl ayerBul l etX and just X
instead of Pl ayerX.
Long names take more time when editing, but
they will save hours later when debugging. Also
consider at some point your code might be
scrutinised by someone else. You do want to
make your program legible!
Time to play a game
We are going to store our variables in a
PROC edure called Setup , along with our sprites
and sound files. This keeps our program
organised. The CYCLE and REPEAT commands
define our main program loop. This is where all
the action will happen.
Now we need to load the sprites so we can start
having some fun. Open the Editor by pressing
F2 , if youre not already in it.
Edit the MagPi code so it becomes:
39
 // Magpi Game display a white box, which is no good on our
PROC Setup black space background. We can stop this by
specifying a single colour to be transparent so it
CYCLE is not drawn.
PROC ScreenUpdate
REPEAT Add the setSpri teTrans command directly
END below the l oadSpri te command, as shown
below, and then press F3 to run the program
DEF PROC ScreenUpdate again:
pl otSpri te (Shi p, Shi pX, Shi pY, 0)
UPDATE l oadSpri te (" Pl ayer2. bmp" , Shi p, 0)
ENDPROC setSpri teTrans (Shi p, 255, 0, 255)

DEF PROC Setup Thats much better!

HGR
updateMode = 0
Shi pX = 0
Shi pY = gHei ght / 2
Shi p = newSpri te (1)
l oadSpri te (" Pl ayer2. bmp" , Shi p, 0) Program explanation
ENDPROC
Now that we have something more substantial,
It should look something like this in the Editor. lets take a proper look at what is going on. We'll
explain each section of the code line by line.
// MagPi Game

Anything displayed after the // one the same line

is ignored. This allows us to add comments to
make the program easy to understand.
PROC Setup

Tells the program to jump to the procedure called

When you run the program you might be
surprised to see a bright pink (magenta) box
surrounding our space ship. Dont worry, theres
nothing wrong... we just need to
set this colour to be transparent.
FUZE BASIC will not draw any
colour that is specified as the
transparent colour.
We need this because a sprite graphic is simply
a box and everything in the box is drawn. So if
we have a white background in our sprite it will
Setup , run whatever is there and return when it
comes to the ENDPROC command.
CYCLE
PROC ScreenUpdate
REPEAT
These three lines define our main program loop.
Whatever is between the CYCLE / REPEAT loop
will be repeated indefinitely.
END
END signifies the end of the program. When the
program executes the command it will return to
Direct mode. In our program this can only
happen when <Esc> is pressed.

40
 DEF PROC ScreenUpdate
This starts the definition of the ScreenUpdate
procedure. It will update everything on the screen
pl otSpri te (Shi p, Shi pX, Shi pY, 0)
The pl otSpri te command draws a sprite
( Shi p ) at screen coordinates X ( Shi pX) and Y
( Shi pY) using version 0. Having different
versions of a sprite enables animation.
UPDATE
When we draw graphics to the screen they are
actually drawn to a background screen. The
UPDATE command copies the background screen
to the main screen. This keeps everything
running smoothly and simplifies game
programming.
ENDPROC
Return back to where the procedure was called.
DEF PROC Setup
The Setup procedure is deliberately placed at
the end of the program. It is a good habit to keep
all the main setup commands in one place so it is
easy to find them. Also this will usually end up
being quite a big routine so you dont want it
getting in the way at the beginning.
HGR
This initialises high-resolution graphics mode.
updateMode = 0
Sets the screen update system to manual.
Shi pX = 0
Shi pY = gHei ght / 2
Shi pX and Shi pY are used to store the X and Y
coordinates of the players ship. Shi pY takes a
system constant called gHei ght , which is the
pixel height of the screen, and divides it by 2 to
determine the vertical middle of the screen.
Shi p = newSpri te (1)
This creates a sprite ID called Shi p with room for
just one version of the graphic. The version count
starts from 0. Later we will increase the number
of versions so we can animate the sprite.
l oadSpri te (" Pl ayer2. bmp" , Shi p, 0)
The l oadSpri te command assigns the named
graphic image to a sprite ID ( Shi p ) and stores it
as version 0.
setSpri teTrans (Shi p, 255, 0, 255)
This specifies the transparent colour of the sprite
ID ( Shi p ) to bright pink using red ( 255 ), green
( 0) and blue ( 255 ) values between 0 and 255.
ENDPROC
Return back to where the procedure was called.
Add controls and movement
We are now making progress but unfortunately
we do not have space for much more this month.
Lets add one more piece to our game to make it
feel like we are really getting somewhere.
We are going to add a new procedure called
CheckControl s which will check for the Up,
Down, Left and Right arrow keys being pressed
and correspondingly change the position of the
rocket.
First we add the call to the CheckControl s
procedure to our main program loop:
CYCLE
PROC CheckControl s
PROC ScreenUpdate
REPEAT
Now add the definition of the CheckControl s
procedure to your program. It does not matter
where you place this procedure but we will place
it before the definition of the ScreenUpdate
procedure:
41
 DEF PROC CheckControl s
UpKey = scanKeyboard (scanUp)
DownKey = scanKeyboard (scanDown)
LeftKey = scanKeyboard (scanLeft)
Ri ghtKey = scanKeyboard (scanRi ght)
IF UpKey THEN Shi pY = Shi pY + 1
IF DownKey THEN Shi pY = Shi pY - 1
IF LeftKey THEN Shi pX = Shi pX - 1
IF Ri ghtKey THEN Shi pX = Shi pX + 1
ENDPROC
Your new code should look something like this in
the Editor.
Run the program by pressing F3 . Im going to be
very disappointed if you have not worked out
what will happen when you press the cursor
keys.
Coming up...
Next time we will learn more BASIC commands
plus add a few enemies and some fire power to
our game.
42
COMPETITION
TEASER
In our October issue, the folks at FUZE are
planning to run a FUZE BASIC programming
competition, with an incredible 500 of prizes!
First prize is the amazing FUZE T2-R kit, worth
230. Not only does this have everything you
need to maximise your enjoyment of the
Raspberry Pi, it also includes an OWI
programmable robotic arm kit!
Second prize is the superb FUZE T2-A kit, worth
1 80. Again, this contains everything you need
including a Raspberry Pi Model B, solderless
breadboard, various electronic components, SD
card with FUZE BASIC, printed Programmer's
Reference Guide and much more!
Third prize is the excellent FUZE T2-C kit for
your Raspberry Pi. Worth 80, this kit contains
the FUZE case, keyboard, integrated USB hub,
FUZE I/O board and power supply.
Details of the prizes can be found at
http://www.fuze.co.uk/products.
Over the coming months you will learn
everything that you need, but if you want to give
yourself a head start then download the FUZE
BASIC Programmer's Reference Guide from
http://www.fuze.co.uk/resources-2/.
 P R I N T E D I T I O N AV AI L AB L E
WO R L D WI D E
The MagPi is available for FREE from http://www.themagpi.com, from The MagPi iOS
and Android apps and also from the Pi Store. However, because so many readers have
asked us to produce printed copies of the magazine, we are pleased to announce that
printed copies are now regularly available for purchase at the following Raspberry Pi
retailers...
Americas EMEA AsiaPac

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